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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24925363">Tales from the Tall Grass</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetweenTownleys/pseuds/BetweenTownleys'>BetweenTownleys</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Last of Us, The Last of Us 2 - Fandom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abby is a murder dad, Abby/Ellie - Freeform, Ellie realizes Abby is more like Joel than she knew, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Gen, PTSD, Spoilers, finding reasons to go on living, for...... everything, missing dad a lot, narrative parallels, past Ellie/Dina, post TLOU2, sad memories of ghost Joel, survivor's guilt, the last of us 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:40:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,673</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24925363</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetweenTownleys/pseuds/BetweenTownleys</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢<br/>Two fingers short and with no reason left to live, a ruined Ellie packs up for just one more hunt. If Abby can't do Ellie the courtesy of killing her, then at least the next best thing she can offer is absolution. Joel's lessons follow. No matter what, you keep finding something to fight for.<br/>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</p><p>[A canon compliant Abby/Ellie enemies-to-lovers fix-it sequel]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Abby/Ellie, Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie &amp; Joel (The Last of Us)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>349</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>TLOU2 really fucked me up, you guys. I'm so profoundly sad that I had to work some of these feelings out. I hope an Abby/Ellie tag eventually shows up in the archives for real! Maybe I just like to eat glass and suffer but I'm also pretty sure this game ends on a note where it seems disingenuous for Ellie to go back to Dina in Jackson, and Ellie is just so very extra fucked by her compound issues? But she deserves love???? After the events of this game, I feel like there's really only one person on the entire planet who could really ever understand her now. And guess what. It's Abby. Complex, frightening, brick-house-shaped Abby. Also, Abby is a murder dad??? Abby is SO MUCH like Joel sometimes it hurts???? SOMEBODY needs to write this romance about healing after a cycle of violence has been broken, so it might as well be me. Anyway, male fragility is violence, emotional complexity is key to empathy, fuck all the incels who hated this game because it's for real a piece of high art. This'll be just a couple of pretty short chapters, I haven't decided how many yet. Just gotta crack my knuckles and get into this one!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Water hisses against the hull of the rusted old skiff as it cuts a path diagonally through the choppy waters. The storm is still far off enough over the sea to be of no real concern yet, but Ellie looks at it anyway as the sky darkens, and the water changes color from the earlier afternoon’s sunlit green-blue to something ominous as slate. The water is deep here, and in an hour it will be so dark that if Ellie fell off the boat and sunk down, she isn’t sure she would find the bottom before the black weight of the ocean would smother her to death. It’s appropriate, somehow. Appropriate in the same way that the promise of death nearby always feels appropriate.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The engine rumbles and hums and sputters, and Ellie’s fingers on her good hand are numb on the rudder from the long journey. She smells like the sea because her clothes have been soaked in salt spray for days, and the skin across her nose is tight with healed over sun-blisters. It’ll peel soon, and her face will be a mess. If things had stayed the same, Dina would have kissed her there and run the tips of her fingers over the burn like her touch could make it all go away. The unfortunate reality Ellie has found is that nothing just </span>
  <em>
    <span>goes away</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Most things have a nasty habit of </span>
  <em>
    <span>staying</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Things stay, and they get heavier. They stick around until there’s so much </span>
  <em>
    <span>staying</span>
  </em>
  <span> that Ellie feels crushed under the weight of it all. Ellie doesn’t like to stay anywhere for a long time anymore, because the longer she sits still, the more chances things have of piling up, faster and faster and faster.   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her map is wet and difficult to handle with one shitty hand that’s only got three fingers in the fucking first place. Ellie wrestles with it until it lies across her knee, and she tries her best to spread it flat. Despite the fact that she’s been keeping close to the coast, she knows how vulnerable she is in the old skiff, especially with the threat of the storm rolling in from over the open water. She frowns and looks up again as the distant sky crackles with lightning, and a heavy boom of thunder threatens her small vessel’s imminent survival. She’s made enough progress for the day, the reasonable voice inside that sounds like Dina whispers. She should rest up, and seek shelter before the storm that’s far away is suddenly a storm that’s too close. But Dina’s voice pushes the same as it pulls, and Ellie grits her teeth and keeps forging on. The more distance she can put between herself and Jackson, the better off Dina and JJ will be. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s only when the thunder strikes loud enough for Ellie to feel it under her ass in the metal of the boat that she figures she’ll probably die if she doesn’t pull in. She hides the skiff under the far shadow of a beached fishing trawler and begins the steady haul up the beach just as the rain starts to pour. It’s summertime, and so she doesn’t mind the temperature, but Ellie hates how chapped and raw her skin gets under her jeans when she’s drenched for long hours. She flinches as she climbs, sheets of rain hissing across the rising dunes as she parts the grass and makes the final ascent past an old gnarled tree, twisted from long years of lightning strikes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> When she finally hefts her body up onto the road, Ellie can see the shadow of a bloater as it stumbles almost drunkenly across a driveway nearly a half-mile down the cul-de-sac. She wonders if coming back here was a mistake. California is full of strange shapes, unusual plants and trees making Ellie look twice at unfamiliar silhouettes, but bloaters she knows. She knows they’re slow, and too heavy to climb, and so she just turns in the opposite direction and heads up the road to seek out the first house she can find that’s secure. Tonight, Ellie is just too tired to fight. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Joel is in the tall grass again. Ellie can’t quite make him out, because he’s been drifting further away recently, but he’s still there all the same. She’s in Wyoming, sitting in the yard with JJ, back on the farm. Dina is in the kitchen, Ellie can hear her clattering around with the pots and pans through the open window, just underneath the hissing of the breeze through the grass. Joel is walking along the far perimeter of the fence. He’s far enough away that Ellie can’t quite make out his face, but she thinks he must be scouting the area for infected. He’s got a way about him when he’s prowling for threats; a kind of measured calm that makes his neck stiff. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She wants to tell him he doesn’t have to do that. He should come in for dinner, because Dina is making kugel with stewed apples, and they just bought a bag of real fresh-ground coffee for him, as unbelievable as that is. Ellie never cared much for it, but Joel loves the stuff. Hot bean water. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>JJ burbles in her lap, and Ellie looks down and grins at her little potato. He’s a happy baby. She knows she shouldn’t be touching him, she’ll get blood on him, but she just can’t help it. The little guy’s just so gosh darn cute, just like his dead daddy.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie stands up and shifts her weight so that JJ settles on her hip. “Joel!” she calls out over the field as the sunset begins to burn the tips of the tall grass bronze and gold. He can’t hear her. He’s wandered too far away from the house. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Come back! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Joel</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”  Stubborn old dinosaur. Nope, gone. He’s already vanished into the grass. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The screen door screeches as Ellie pushes through to the kitchen, undercut by the sound of the dishes and the record player playing an old Hank Williams album Joel gets a little too sentimental about. He’s getting softer in his old age, even Dina’s starting to notice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The floorboards groan, and when Ellie looks up, the house is empty. The baby and the furniture and Dina are nowhere, and there’s no more Hank Williams, and even the walls feel like they’re holding their breath in all that open space. It’s midnight, and the windows are all hungry black maws that lead into endlessness. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When she looks down, Ellie is holding Joel’s broken watch. The arms are both immobile, all the whirring mechanical bits and bobs inside of it held perfectly still in death. The metal is cool in her good hand, and she passes her bad fingers over the shattered face. Her thumb catches on the broken glass.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s alright, kiddo...” Joel whispers kindly in the dark. She thinks she misses his voice most of all. “...You can just let it go.”  </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>When Ellie wakes up the next morning in a derelict motel, it’s because seagulls have nested on the roof and are making a ruckus. She packs up and starts out again, heading for the beach in a steady southerly trajectory. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sand here is whiter and finer than Ellie has seen before, and despite the constant drum of the wind and the ocean on the shore, some of the old boardwalk still remains intact. It’s easy enough to follow. In the old times, she thinks people must have come here for fun. Derelict bars and restaurants with extravagant signs peek out hopefully along the road through a carpet of overgrown green and orange foliage. Nobody lives here. Ellie thinks her map is telling her she’s in Long Beach, which even from the shoreline shows signs of heavy bombing. California seems strange because out of everywhere she’s been, it feels the most savage. Not because of the unusual plants or any other strange natural landscapes, but because once, the people here had lived decadently. Ellie thinks money sounds like a joke. Nobody’s life gets better after a metric fuck ton of bombs get dropped on their houses. Now, there are only sunburnt lizards, and flowers whose smells waft on the hot wind, and the flashing mirrored shapes of toppled towers in the California sun.  And clickers. A fucking ton of clickers. But Ellie has always lived her life one kill at a time, and so at least that part is easier than the rest. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie eats seagull eggs and fish for a week, and polishes it off with parsed out sips of jamacan rum from a bottle she found in an overturned truck.  She picks her teeth and clicks her tongue and looks at her map, touching the pad of her index finger and sliding it down the paper coastline like a lover’s caress. She’s wearing Joel’s broken watch next to Dina’s good luck charm, but she’s not sure why she even does it. As far as Ellie is concerned, one, if not all three of them might as well just vanish from history. Joel is in the ground and Dina is in Jackson with Jesse’s parents, and Ellie is a ghost. Ghosts don’t need time or luck, but she wears them all the same, maybe because time and luck are all she has left. She frowns and runs her fingers over her map again, until her thumb brushes gently across a QZ zone she’s drawn in with sharpie, and finally settles on a blotted red X. The paper feels warm to the touch.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maybe there’s something to it about the journey being what matters. Ellie’s happiest memories are of traveling with Joel, in those quiet in-between stretches where no people or infected were anywhere nearby. She remembers the quiet of walking across overgrown overpasses, and moving through old neighborhoods where birdsong reverberates and old antennas squeak and groan in the breeze. That time had always been about just putting one foot in front of the other, as her small world had quietly expanded into a panorama of greens and grays and yellows and blues. Joel’s musty old plaid shirts were good at blending into all of that mess, but his black hair always stuck out, especially against the sheen of the sun off the side of an overturned trailer. Ellie still wonders how they had made it so far together, how they had managed to stay undetected for so long, when Ellie is sure she would know the shape of Joel even in darkness. She would know it even if she was blind. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> Long Beach is a different kind of journey. It feels almost good that everything is strange here, because if Ellie had been left to make this trek across Boston or Pittsburgh or even Colorado, she thinks she wouldn’t make it to the other side. Ellie wants to put away childish things. She left Joel’s guitar back at the farm the same as a body is laid down in a grave, but places have lives of their own, and even if she doesn’t want it, sometimes she’s still reminded of her pun books and her high tops and the sharp echo in an empty street as she teaches herself how to whistle to a captive, exasperated audience. Sometimes, memories make the worst company, and this time Ellie really does want to make the journey alone. No less than she deserves.   </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It doesn’t rain inland too often. California weather is fantastic. Ellie has good views of all her waypoints, and easily finds her way past the QZ after she cuts inland a few weeks in. When she hits the Los Angeles River she heads south again, and all around her the buildings grow thicker and taller, each one leaning over drunkenly onto the next one like a bunch of tired old men.  She makes good progress and finds secure places high up at night to camp, until the day her luck finally begins to wane.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> One afternoon, Ellie falls through the floorboards of a rotting oriental rug warehouse and lands wrong on a wooden crate. It’s not the first time, or even the third time she’s suffered a puncture wound to the abdomen, but this one goes in through her back and nearly cuts clean through her side. She manages to limp to a nearby diner before collapsing sideways into a booth and passing out for a few hours. When she wakes up she’s feverish, and the moon cuts in through a broken window and spills silver light out across the table. Against the velvety black sky, the moonlight picks up dancing pinpricks Ellie takes a moment to realize are moths. Drenched in sweat, she forces herself to sit up long enough to tend to the wound, before falling back on her pack in a messy haze. Something cold and sharp pokes at her, and she wrenches her bag around until the thing pops off in her hand and she holds it up. It’s her old rocket pin. The gift from Joel. She falls asleep with it clutched loose in the cage of her good fingers. Maybe not all memories always make bad company.   </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
  
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie’s back is infected. The wound stinks, and it oozes yellow pus that stains her shirt. She should have known better than this. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> know better than this. Maybe she has a deathwish. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It feels alright... Dying. The idea of it. She doesn’t have any antibiotics, and her feet don’t seem to want to move quite as fast as they should. Ellie wonders if Joel is on the other side. He’d been religious in his own way. Maybe not practicing, maybe he didn’t even own a bible, but he had a reverence for the Lord’s name. Maybe it was just the Texas in him. Spillover habits from the old times. But it’s nice to think he might be there, waiting. Even if he isn’t, dying seems better than the alternative; to keep on living a life that just keeps on going, on and on, where nothing changes except the things that just keep getting worse. It makes more sense now that someone would go through so much trouble to safely tuck away just one rotten old copy of the torah. Dina understood things Ellie never had.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie’s map has a crusty yellow blob now from some of her viscous back ooze seeping into it. She’s still hunting, she has to keep moving, and there’s always something waiting to kill her if septicemia doesn’t do it first. So she touches the red X on her map again and then she folds it up, and she puts it away in her back pocket. Maybe if she’s lucky, she’ll get to choose the place where she dies. That seems like hope, if any exists for her anymore. Ellie touches Dina’s bracelet with trembling fingers, and then she hitches her pack up more securely before heading down to the road.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She’s walking a precariously twisted support beam as she cuts through a rotting casino when the first arrow hits her. The weird thing is, Ellie only registers the thud of the impact, before looking down at the white fletching sticking out of her shoulder and realizing she should be registering pain too. When none comes, she waits, going perfectly still. She thinks of Joel with the moth-gilded guitar in his gnarled old hands. He always looked sad back in Jackson, but a little less-so whenever he was tinkering around in his workshop. Carving was a funny hobby for him, because he always looked at art with his head cocked to the side, like it might turn totally upside-down unless he figured out what the hell he was seeing. He liked cowboys, though. Horses made him a little less sad. And Joel looked even less sad than that whenever </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ellie</span>
  </em>
  <span> had a guitar in </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span> hands. She can still smell the wood chips. The dust and resin. The smell of home. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next arrow knocks her off the beam, and Ellie just falls. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s a motherfucking dinosaur!” Ellie screams in feral delight, and Joel is there laughing. She can hear the whisper of his body moving through tall grass, and then the wind picks up.  She can feel the tickle of the cool blades as they caress her legs right before she lifts off the ground. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Outer space is totally cool. Actually, it’s fucking awesome. Comets whizz by, and silver shooting stars, and Ellie floats like a cosmonaut as she points out constellations that look like a velociraptor and a triceratops. “Dinosaurs are so fucking cool. They’re like basically the coolest things on planet earth.” She says with a healthy dose of wisdom, and Joel nods in agreement, even though she can’t see his eyes. “Can you name all the planets?” He asks.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh! Oh, I know that one! </span>
  <em>
    <span>My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nice Pizzas</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Daggum, girl, you are smart.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie laughs. It feels so good, it’s been such a long time since she’s laughed. She’s got Riley’s pun book in her hands, but when she opens up the front cover all the pages have been torn out. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The moose lies splayed open, it’s red intestines spread out in a brutal pile across the fresh snow. The moose is Dina with her stomach ripped apart, baby JJ barely an afterthought inside her savaged cavity. Then Dina is David, whose face is a horrible mash, Ellie’s machete still lodged halfway through the front of his skull, chunks of his brain oozing out of his nose. Joel’s face is docile as a deer right before the killing blow, pliant and silent as he lies in a pool of his own blood.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie runs through the tall grass. The farm house is on fire behind her and it paints the dark landscape in horrifying slicks of orange and yellow. Stalkers slink through the wheat along the perimeter of the fence. She can’t breathe. This is her fault. Her fault. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All her fault. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All her fault. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>All her fault. </span>
  </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
  
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Ellie wakes up to the sound of footsteps. Her first thought isn’t who those feet they are, but only that she’s sure she wasn’t supposed to wake up at all. Death came to pay her a visit, and for some fucking reason the grim reaper passed right over her head again. Ellie has no clue why this keeps happening, even after Joel is dead. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>deserves</span>
  </em>
  <span> to die. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>should have </span>
  </em>
  <span>died. </span>
  <em>
    <span>She needs to die</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She wonders if he’s still watching over her now, if Joel’s ghost isn’t wrapped around her shoulders just like his coat is, and then she realizes her wrists have been handcuffed to the pipe above her head. But what’s most surprising of all is that her wounds have been treated. Even the puncture in her side feels a little better. Someone had bothered to bandage her up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She’s in a basement, but it isn’t wet or rotten. It’s dry, and there are lamps settled on overturned crates that Ellie can see still hold a decent stash of supplies. Someone has been living here. A few days, maybe even a week. A crossbow is leaning against the far wall by the stairs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The footsteps creak some more above Ellie, and she listens harder as she tests her bindings. Her left shoulder has the first arrow wound at the ball juncture, and her right thigh has the second. Between all three puncture holes, not much core strength is left over to help her rip the pipe out of it’s rusty home. She grunts in quiet frustration, knowing time is a resource that’s growing steadily more precious. Ellie’s pack is missing, along with all her weapons, and she’s eyeballing the crossbow just as a door she hadn’t seen before creaks open, and someone comes through it. A young boy. She knows him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Ellie gasps, and wrenches again at the ties around her wrists that pull her arms up above her head. That child. The boy that had mercy in his eyes. Ellie is genuinely shocked to see him still alive, considering the state she’d last seen him in. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>( Seen all of them in. )</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Where is she?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” The question bursts out more like a threat than Ellie means, and the boy hastily ducks back through the door and vanishes again. For a long time, the building stays dead silent. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For a long time, nothing happens. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For a long time, Ellie just keeps sitting and breathing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Just sitting and breathing and sitting.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For an even longer time than that, nobody comes. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s nearly impossible to judge the hour without windows, but Ellie thinks it must be late when she finally nods off in the quiet orange glow. Either that, or her body really is that fucked up. She drifts for a little while between planes. Joel is almost nearby. He’s gauzy, nearly there, then there, and then gone again. He doesn’t say anything, he’s more and more a sensory memory nowadays anyway. Time is always marching cruelly on. Ellie can almost smell him, leather and horse and sweat and resin and blood and so many other things that are gone now. When she finally rouses a little, Abby is sitting on the floor across from her, with her back against the crate. The crossbow is in her lap.</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“.</span>
  <em>
    <span>..thank God.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Ellie quietly sighs. She feels only a staggering relief. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby’s body isn’t quite what it used to be yet, she’s not emaciated anymore even though there’s something distinctly hollow about her, but her eyes are still the same. Sharp as a shiv, wicked clever and working faster than Ellie can keep up. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, Abby tilts her head and says, “God doesn’t have anything to do with this.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie nods. She’s so fucking tired of everything. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Apparently Abby hates the silence as much as Ellie revels in it. “...Did you come back to finish us off?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her wrists hurt. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ellie fucking hurts</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She shakes her head no.   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Give me a single reason why I should believe you. I showed you mercy. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Twice</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And now, what? You’re here to finish the job?”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why did you patch me up?” Ellie diverts. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We shot you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And then you patched me up.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Should I shoot you now?” The crossbow is still heavy in Abby’s lap. She looks down at it. Her hair is loose, still short but growing longer every day. Now it curls just under her chin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie can’t find a reason to say no, and so she doesn’t. “...If you want to.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Were you tracking us?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“To kill us.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I said no.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re lying. But for the record, if you say it’s not to kill us, then why?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>At that, Ellie sucks on her tongue and doesn’t say anything. She’s not a sharer. She’s always been bad at that… secrets, secrets, too many secrets to keep safe and not enough trust to make sure they don’t all come tumbling out wrong. She tried to share with Dina, until Dina realized how infected the wound had really grown. How everything just beneath the surface still </span>
  <em>
    <span>festered</span>
  </em>
  <span>. After that, Dina had been afraid.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby sighs an edgy sigh. “Well?” Her lips are a tight, narrow line that communicates a near complete collapse of patience. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Joel is in the tall grass. His pack is hitched high up on his back, his rifle and his shotgun slung on the left, and his machete and his pistol and his revolver on the right. Ellie is safe in his shadow as the sunset creeps down the western sky and sinks into endless yellow. They make their way through the field, littered with dead cars half-sunk into the dirt, towards some distant waypoint whose location Ellie knows now is worth far less than the journey itself. Joel is always just a few steps ahead of Ellie, but never out of her reach.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie hangs her head. Her mouth is dry, and her lips are beginning to crack. She can’t even look Abby in the eye. “...I wanted you to kill me.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Un</span>
  <em>
    <span>-fucking</span>
  </em>
  <span>-believable.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There is a sudden shuffle as Abby abruptly clambers back up to her feet. Her face is as nasty as if Ellie had just thrown up a ball of cockroaches. The crossbow rattles in her grip when she takes a swift step forward and soundly kicks Ellie in the stomach, pitching her into the tip of her boot. Ellie gasps out loud, her injuries flaring up and making her vision go bright white with pain. Somewhere in the background, she hears the crossbow slam down on the table. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When her vision begins to clear a little, Ellie looks up through an involuntary veil of tears and sees Abby looking down at her with an expression nothing short of biblically judgemental. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m not here to give </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> absolution.” She whispers, close to fury, but only just beneath it. She fumes in silence until the odd little boy sticks his head through the secret door again, and shoots Abby a look that would bleed if it could. Something passes over Abby like a shadow, and she lets a tiny sigh cut loose. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“...</span>
  <em>
    <span>Enough</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Lev.” She declares, and then she stomps out of the room. The boy skitters out of the way to let her pass, then shoots Ellie a worried look before following Abby out the door too. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>They keep Ellie in the basement. The boy, whose name is Lev, Ellie learns, brings her food twice a day, and they move her handcuffs from a pipe above her head to a radiator in the floor so she can piss in a bucket and lie down on her back. Soon enough Ellie’s wrists are raw enough to bleed, until they crust over and start toughening up. Most of the day the house is silent as the grave. Abby keeps the doors secured behind her, so Ellie has no luck that a passing clicker might accidentally wander through and tear out her throat. But Abby doesn’t come to sit with her either like she had that first night, and so the only question left remaining is when exactly Abby will choose to finally come and put her pet to sleep.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The psychological torture of sitting alone in one place this long sometimes feels worse than the physical torture Ellie has experienced at the hands of other humans. Even when she starts asking Lev questions, he only looks at her with reticence and doesn’t answer. Eventually Ellie stops trying, and starts watching instead. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev looks close to fifteen years old, and he’s more capable than his appearance might otherwise suggest. Though he’s smaller than a pole bean and something about his stare makes Ellie think of rabbits, the kid is good with a bow. He must have been the one to take the shots that brought Ellie down. Lev is never without his bow, keeping the wood and wire slung across his chest as casually as if it were a backpack, and he looks back just as carefully at Ellie when she looks at him. He regularly brings in small game for them to eat, and he seems particularly adept at shooting birds. There’s something about him that’s a little like an animal. His movements are careful and measured, and every choice he makes feels purposeful. He’s got the extraordinary caution of someone who has been afraid for most of his life. Ellie can’t even blame the kid. She can see his scars.   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby, Ellie sees less of. The pair must be living out of the rooms upstairs, because the only times Abby descends into the basement are the days she needs to replenish her supplies. Each time they look at one another, Ellie can feel it all the way down to the tips of her toes. Neither one of them ever says a word. Ellie is too proud to ask for death again, and she wonders if it isn’t just as equally likely that Abby is too proud to give it.   </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They argue sometimes. Abby and Lev. Upstairs. Ellie can’t make out the words, only the tonality. Abby is angry and forceful, Lev quieter, but unrelentingly persistent.  Sometimes the arguments last for long hours, and result in Abby stomping out of the house, leaving only Lev’s near-silent pattering in her wake. Other times, it ends just as abruptly as it began. Sometimes it gets quiet. Then quieter. Sometimes one of them will cry. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie listens to all of it and kicks at yesterday’s empty meal plate with a huff of frustration. She’s eaten duck and rat and squirrel and oranges, but mostly with her face since her hands can’t reach far enough, and her shit bucket is gross and Ellie is gross and her hands are purple and she smells like death and if they’re just gonna argue all the time anyway then Abby had better come down here and just put a fucking bullet in her head and be done with  it.   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But nobody shoots her, and so Ellie lies on her back and thumps her skull against the floor and listens. It’s all there is to do. Ellie just listens. Sometimes deep into the night, she breathes and tries to be one with the moments when the house groans with life, when it settles in the wind or a shutter cracks against the wall, or when Abby and Lev drag their feet with audible exhaustion as they settle down for the night. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then she hears something different. Something troubling, near midnight, or even closer to dawn. At first Ellie is resentful of it, but after a while it becomes wildly more apparent exactly what the awful sound she’s hearing really is; Abby has nightmares too. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev sets the plate of duck down just inside Ellie’s range before he quickly backs away again. With a grunt of effort, Ellie drags it closer with a boot until she can grab it, then foists the plate up as high as it will go. Everything is more difficult with less fingers, and significantly less arm mobility than that. She stuffs the greasy meat into her mouth like usual, but begins to slow down as she looks up. Lev is still there. Normally he would be long gone by now, but today he’s lingering. Ellie swallows, but doesn’t take another bite. She waits, her eyes steady. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Slowly, Lev crouches down in front of her. His face is lit with a cautious curiosity. “...Is it true?” He questions slowly. His voice is soft. He’s never spoken to her directly before. “Do the demons really have no effect on you?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Demons</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Well, Ellie thinks, they might as well be demons. What’s the difference? She blinks at him, her face a careful neutral. “...yes.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This seems to impress the scrub. He leans back on his heels with a kind of quiet reverence. “A miracle.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She stares at him some more, before shaking her head once and attempting to return to eating. Her handcuffs give a noisy clank against the pipe. “...</span>
  <em>
    <span>No</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” She assures him. It’s not. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But you </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> special.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie sighs. She thinks she might be dead on the inside, which is only slightly less appealing than being dead on the outside.  “Not anymore.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev doesn’t say anything in response to that, but he doesn’t leave either. When he continues to just stare, Ellie gets annoyed and drops her plate again. They look at one another with what Ellie perceives are entirely different intentions. The trouble is, Ellie cant figure out what the hell the kid might actually want. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Why</span>
  </em>
  <span> am I still alive?” The question bursts out of her. “Why hasn’t she killed me yet? Why are you still in this house? How did you know I was chasing you? Why are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>talking</span>
  </em>
  <span> to me?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The boy actually looks like he’s considering the question. Then he glances up at the ceiling for the briefest of moments. “...when things stay the same for too long, it can be a poison.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah? Well you’re doing a great job of doing things </span>
  <em>
    <span>exactly</span>
  </em>
  <span> the fucking same down here. Just shoot me if you were gonna do it already so I can </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking</span>
  </em>
  <span> move on.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev’s eyes get sad, and Ellie feels sick inside. He doesn’t say another word, but he does silently stand up straight again, and he leaves her exactly where he found her. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby’s back is against the crate again the next time Ellie wakes up. At first she flinches as if reaching for her gun, but the handcuffs stop her up short and she forces her muscles to relax back into the floor again. She gives a long suffering sigh, and stays quiet. Waiting. Abby just eyes her down, with that stare that’s like the glint off a blade. Ellie won’t beg for it. She won’t beg.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why did you come find us? I thought this was over.” Abby asks. It’s a familiar question again, just with different words. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie blinks at the ceiling. “It’s never gonna be over.  And… it’s just you. I was looking for </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay. Me. If you thought you could beat an apology out of me, you’re wrong.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t think that.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They’re both deceptively calm right now. It puts Ellie’s teeth on edge. Their voices are too civil. Too </span>
  <em>
    <span>quiet</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Why does it feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> unforgivable to have even </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> much of an honest conversation with her?   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“...Okay.” Abby concedes. Not disagreeing. Not agreeing. Not anything. “Why me?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The laugh chokes Ellie on it’s way up. It isn’t a real laugh, because Ellie doesn’t even know how to smile anymore. It sounds more like dust, or like something crumbling up and blowing away. “You know why.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Because you still want to kill me.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The laugh is already stale as Ellie sighs and rolls her head back and forth on the floor. She’ll always hold on to her righteous anger somewhere deep down, but by now it’s so deeply buried she’s not sure how to drill it back up again. There’s only the exhausted catharsis of the memory of Joel’s final night. Joel with his coffee and his sad eyes. Joel whispering lessons to her on that porch railing, about loving, about how to love, and about how he had still wanted to be loved in return. The kind of memory that stopped time. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Look, I have no idea what that girl’s intentions are, but I do know that she would be lucky to have you.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“...this is still about Joel.” Abby whispers into the silence, just as quiet as Joel. Just as sure. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I followed you because… you’re the only one who can understand.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Understand what? Killing?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie finally looks over fully at Abby, and meets her steady gaze. God, a whole terrible world is right behind her eyes. Killing is only a shadow cast by the truth. “...</span>
  <em>
    <span>Me</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Above them, the floorboards creak as Lev quietly makes his way across the room. Abby just sits there, looking at Ellie like she’s a puzzle with directions in a foreign language, before one of her hands raises up to rub tiredly at the back of her neck. Her hair is pulled back into a nubby ponytail, a not entirely successful first attempt at old normalcy where some strands aren’t quite long enough to fit yet. She’s strong and square as the crate she’s sitting against, and her face is blunt and plain as a pitbull. Even her ruddy mouth reminds Ellie of some of the worst bullies from her long ago days at the academy. Old days, when Riley had been there to throw a punch and spit an insult in retaliation. Ellie has the strange thought for that particular moment that she’s always liked tough women. But she also knew better than anyone, even if a woman was made of stronger stuff than men, it wasn’t always a guarantee that she could make it. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay.” Abby finally says again, in that same tone that doesn’t communicate shit. What the hell does okay mean? Okay what? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But still. Ellie won’t beg. She squares her jaw and lets her stare go flinty instead of showing weakness with a question. When Abby stands up, something strange passes through her, and even though it’s only for a second, Ellie thinks for a moment she looks a little like Lev. Some of that sharp glint in her eyes fades. Ellie can’t tell if it’s confusion or sympathy or even pity, but decides if it’s any of those things it still wouldn’t change their situation. If they have an understanding, then surely Ellie knows what comes next. Will it be a bullet or a bolt or a knife? Any of them are fine, as long as it’s quick. Even if it’s not quick, it’ll still be fine. More than fine. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But Abby doesn’t get her crossbow. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Or a knife. Or even a gun. Instead she makes the troubled walk back over to the stairs, but instead of leaving she lingers for a moment by the door. With a trill of panic where Ellie is afraid she’ll just have to keep shitting in a bucket in this fucking basement until she dies of exposure, she tries to sit up right when Abby puts her hand on the doorknob. “Okay </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Ellie asks too loudly, in a shameful moment of desperation. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby looks at the doorknob too hard. Like she’s thinking about chopping it off with a machete. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Okay</span>
  </em>
  <span>... we’re leaving at first light.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>We?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s nothing real to say to that because the shock of it is too big to swallow at the present moment. Ellie only stares after Abby with her mouth slightly ajar, until Abby turns and shoots her one last bitter look. Revenge is an old business that doesn’t die, but what path does revenge take when it arrives at an impasse? One final lingering minute is spent by Abby sizing her prisoner up, before she finally swings the door open and throws herself out through it.  </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>That night, Ellie doesn’t dream of anything. </span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Six weeks ago.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>SIX WEEKS AGO</b>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The first cold, fat drop of rain hits Abby square on the cheek as she peers up at the stormy sky. A staccato of tiny thuds follow suit as the storm picks up, and it batters the metal roof of the truck she’s standing on to get a better vantage point of the coastline. Lightning strikes the surface of the water far out over the ocean, threatening a steady and quickly escalating approach. Then the aluminum gives an even louder crunch as Lev springs down and lands solidly by her side.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We should move inland.” he advises, the surety in his voice so much older than his actual age. Sometimes, Abby catches herself thinking it’s actually a little old man that drives the gears inside of him, instead of some aberrant stray child.   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby nods once, and whets her bottom lip before giving the storm another appraising look. It doesn’t rain much here, but when it does, the situation can quickly get dangerous. She shrugs her hood up to keep the water off, then jerks her chin for Lev to follow as they leap together back down onto the street. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Time is more spread out here, same as the landscape. The pair pick through a collapsed diner, rain pouring inside through holes in the ceiling, forming elegant liquid silver columns. Through the back door, an alley leads them to a smaller apartment courtyard. Three runners stand immobile, each facing a different corner. They’re moaning quietly, oblivious to the rain and the thunder and anything else about the natural world which might distract them from their own misery and pain. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Runners always moan. Abby thinks they’re pathetic. The sounds they make are all still human enough to be pitiable, right up until the exact instant they catch wind of prey and become the demons Lev believes they really are. Abby had wondered for a long time if anything human might still be left inside them, and if that’s why they moan like they do... If the part that sobbed and wrung at their hands was just the last shred of humanity looking out, unable to escape. Even after being imprisoned by the Rattlers, Abby thinks getting bitten would still be a hundred thousand times worse. Getting infected meant guaranteed madness. Death is almost an afterthought compared to how the fungus would first ravage the brain. Abby’s father had written enough papers on the subject for her to never want to think about it again.   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby gives her companion a quiet nod, and Lev quickly notches his bow with a white-fletched arrow. He deftly lets it fly and the first corpse collapses to the ground with a shirek and a gurgle. Abby stands stoic and silent as Lev takes out the next one, and then the next, until the plaza is only filled with the sound of rain again. They step cautiously over the bodies as they move through, Lev wrenching the shaft of one unbroken arrow back out and stuffing it into his bag, no blood left to pool and leave any evidence the infected had ever even lived. Whatever kind of living that had even been.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Afterwards, they discover one of the less complicated routes beneath a tall cement overpass, headed through a more sparsely populated industrial district that winds southeast. It’s quieter, and offers some cover from the storm. The pavement on either side hisses as the rain picks up, and the wind whips through the overgrown grass. It smells like wet and sweet and salt and mold and mud all at once. Evening is coming on, but the storm clouds have already done their part to make the world feel like night. Abby knows they will need to find a place to camp soon, but something about the rain makes her feel shielded in a way she hasn’t felt in weeks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Is it close?” Lev asks. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hmm..? Still a few days. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” She remembers Owen showing her the point on the map. (</span>
  <em>
    <span>Once</span>
  </em>
  <span>.) She’s still not quite sure it’s exactly where she remembers. The memory is from so long ago that it feels more like a dream than a reality. Had Owen ever really existed? Had she? That little girl feels like a lifetime away. “I think it’s on the other side of Terminal island. We can take the 710 and pass over it, if it hasn’t collapsed.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It would be dangerous to backtrack if it has.”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What, collapsed?” Slowing down a beat to match the kid’s, Abby jostles him playfully with her shoulder. “Come on, you can see a mile in both directions. You’re a better shot than anybody I know! We’ll be just fine.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A mist has begun to rise up off the ground from the day’s heat colliding with the cool of the storm. Lev makes half an attempt at a smile as the fog begins to dull out the rest of the world, everything slowly fading away until it’s just the two of them that exist. Just Lev, and Abby, and one foot in front of the other. Though his smile isn’t entirely successful, there isn’t any dishonesty in it either. Lev doesn’t lie. Not if you look at his eyes anyway. At first, Abby hadn’t been sure if he even knew how to. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She smiles back, brief but sad, and a little doting all the same. “I’m always gonna come back for you. You know it’s you and me now, no matter what we find, right? We’re family.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It hurts too much to think about the Rattler camp to give it too much space now, but the shadow of that time still clings to the hollows of both their cheeks. She sees it in Lev when he looks off into the storm and doesn't say anything more. They don’t talk about what happened there, and Abby wonders if they ever would. She wonders if they could even bear it, to give words to the acts of shame and depravity that Abby had been so sure would lead to their agonizing and humiliating deaths. They almost had, if a different kind of monster hadn’t been stalking close behind. Across miles and miles and miles, through water and fire and grass. If </span>
  <em>
    <span>she</span>
  </em>
  <span> hadn’t found them that night on the shore, strung up among all those wind-salted corpses, Abby and Lev’s story would have ended there. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Facing front again, Abby feels her own skin tighten across her face. They walk in silence awhile. One foot in front of the next. Step by measured step. The scar just above her heart hadn’t stopped aching since that night... The night Ellie had sunk her blade three inches deep into her chest, just a millimeter short of puncturing an artery. Abby recalls the awful crunch of bone, and then the taste of blood mingling with sea-salt. It isn’t something someone could just forget. Abby has seen far too many terrible things to name.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something curls gently around her fingers and Abby snaps back to reality just as Lev takes her hand. She glances down at him at first with surprise, but then with grateful humility. She holds his hand back, tightly at first, then threading their fingers together with a comfortable comradery. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Neither of them sleeps well anymore, but at least they are alone together. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The alarm is sounding as Abby runs down the hospital hallway, towards surgery. Red emergency lighting spills out over everything, and the scent of blood and human terror is thick as gravy. Punctured organs have an odor. She’s smelled it a thousand times before, at her father’s zoo, in other operating rooms, other battle zones full of the corpses of dead men. Bowels releasing in death mingle with digestive gasses, and adrenaline born from fear is a pheromone that’s heavy in her nose. It makes her heart beat faster, harder, gushing in tandem with her own sense of fear. But gunshots have a particular scent too, burnt and bitter, and at first Abby can’t tell if the smell is coming off the blood-spattered walls or off of the pistol she has clutched in her own hands. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby passes the firefly insignia and kicks through the door. She muscles past the wait room and finally pushes into surgery, her heart in her throat. STOP RIGHT THERE, she shouts in her mind, but her voice is useless as she swings her gun around to the operating table where her father’s dead body is lying bloody. Blood oozes from his gaping chest wound and suddenly Ellie is there too, dressed in doctor's scrubs and starting forward with her hands held up in surrender.  PLEASE DON’T DO THIS! Ellie begs in that same voice that’s not a voice. She’s a memory, the sound of her pleading full of a desperate agony. She’s everything Abby remembers from </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> day, the day Joel had died. But she’s Abby too. She’s Abby because Abby can taste Ellie’s sorrow like she tasted the blood outside. Maybe, if things were different, they could have understood each other. They could have been friends. Because they’re the same. Abby falters, the tip of her gun wavering. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THINK OF ALL THE LIVES WE’LL SAVE, Ellie edges closer, her eyes an endless wellspring of pain beneath her blue surgical cap. Her hands slowly reach out,</span>
  <em>
    <span> slowly, slowly,</span>
  </em>
  <span> until one lands gently on Abby’s bare arm. Abby shudders, and goose prickles shoot up her body, all the way to her scalp. The hand runs down her arm to her wrist, and just as Abby is considering relinquishing her grip, of finally letting this end, Ellie wrenches her close and stabs her in the stomach. The knife had always been there. Ellie had always had it, Abby realizes this too late, just as Ellie twists her wrist and jerks the blade sideways, disemboweling her victim and spilling both their shoes in a sheet of blood. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I LET YOU LIVE AND YOU WASTED IT,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Ellie whispers, and Abby jerks violently awake. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>For long minutes, Abby sits up beside the dying fire pit and gasps. Sweat has soaked straight through her shirt and the night breeze runs up her back, making her shiver. One hand goes up to rub at her stomach, back and forth, back and forth, until she pitches forward and finally just rests her sweaty forehead in the cup of her palm. She feels a little faint. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“...Was it a bad one?”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev is still awake. He’s perched on a broken window frame watching the last of the storm clouds roll back out over the black ocean. Stars have crept out again, and his silhouette is instantly recognizable against the night sky. Abby shakes her head, feeling even sicker. She can never remember her dreams for long. Maybe that’s a blessing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“...Probably.” She sighs. Her guts still feel tangled as all hell. Ellie must have been there. “How long until dawn?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev looks at her with something close to pity, but not quite. Abby knows Lev for the most part doesn’t offer judgement; he just struggles to understand. “...A few hours. You should try to sleep some more, if you can.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> She shakes her head. “I, uh, I think I’m done with that for tonight.” She glances back at him, and Abby cocks her head. “What’ve you got?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s a book in Lev’s hand. The second floor they’ve camped out on was once a daycare, and earlier Lev had shown a larger than average interest in the concept of how children from the Old Times had been reared. Though he had done a certain amount of rifling, as they were both inclined to do, Abby thought Lev hadn’t taken anything of any real interest away. Now, just the shape of him sitting with a book in his hand is enough to undermine this idea. Abby squints through the dark, trying to get a better handle on his attitude. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think it’s supposed to be humorous.” He holds the cover up for her to see. </span>
  <em>
    <span>No Pun Intended, vol.4</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby blinks. She tries to push her nightmare back, and takes a few deep, calming breaths. “Are they any good?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Shooting her a stern look, Lev almost begrudgingly cracks the book open and reads off the first crinkled page. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>He bought a donkey because he thought he might get a kick out of it.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They stare at each other in a resonant following silence. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev shakes his head and turns the page. “You’re right, I didn’t find that one humorous either.  </span>
  <em>
    <span>Why are fish so smart? Because they live in schools.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” He pauses again, frowning harder. “I don’t think living in a school is a requirement for being smart. Did children really like these?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>  Abby shrugs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Why are playing cards like wolves? They come in packs.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Okay</span>
  </em>
  <span>, let’s go.” Abby rises and turns to grab her bag. If nobody’s sleeping tonight, then they might as well get on with things. Even the mere concept of marinating in her nightmare another few hours while Lev tries to recreate archaic humor seems like some kind of punishment. “I don’t want to waste any more time if we don’t have to.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Agreed.” Lev huffs, then rises briskly to his feet. He tosses the crinkly book back into the dust, without as much as a second thought. Some jokes just aren’t that funny.  </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>shit</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Abby whistles low in appreciation, then snaps the med kit shut and stuffs it into her pack. “Hey kid, where are you?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m here.” Lev materializes through a hole in the wall. He holds out a handful of clean bandages and Abby offers a nod of approval, meriting the smallest return grin. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby boosts Lev up through a broken window in the stock room, and he quickly circles around the back gate to help Abby force through it and exit the Veterinary clinic. If dead dogs locked forgotten in their cages had been sad, then this veritable wealth of untapped medical supplies feels like it makes up at least in part for a little bit of it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Starvation is a hell of a way to go for any animal, but at least none of them had been eaten. Abby had always hated that. It seems cruel beyond measure that infected sometimes turn on even the most innocent of creatures... On animals that have no stake in the war between infected and humans, because a dead animal would always just be a dead animal. Not like a bitten human, whose most frightening first loss isn’t even death, but sanity.   </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The sun is bright again today. The California breeze is clean and clear on Abby’s skin. She had shed her top layers earlier in favor of letting the world kiss as much of her tired shell as possible, and now she revels in the nice weather. For so long, it had felt like she would never feel the free sun again. Lev is fantastic at taking down fowl and other small game, and even though vegetables here are few and far between, they are still clocking a slow but steady uptic in weight. Another thing about California Abby finds herself being grateful for is the fruit. Her teeth have all firmed up in her gums again, her bruises are fading more quickly, and her strength is slowly beginning to return. Lev’s hair is finally starting to shine, moreso towards the roots whenever Abby sits him down to give him a trim, and if things keep proceeding as they are, soon enough their clothes will start fitting again like they should. Their scars will be forever, but Abby hopes they might be able to look at them one day and mark them as evidence of strength instead of only pain. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s the biggest shark you’ve ever seen?” Abby asks in a brave first attempt at cheerfulness. Lev gives her a blank look, before it morphs into something cautiously optimistic. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Um..?” Lev begins, but he takes his time to turn the memory over. “...Once, Yara and I had been sent to deliver provisions to one of our fishing outposts. When we arrived, the fishermen had chummed the water trying to attract squid. The vessel was too far out to see too well, but after the squid came, I saw a shark dive after one on the lines. It was very large. It almost capsized the boat.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh yeah? How big is ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>very large</span>
  </em>
  <span>’? What kind of shark was it?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know. I’ve, um…” Lev swats at a vine as they duck beneath a flap in a broken chain link fence. Abby helps him through first, then they trade off and she follows him afterward. “I’ve never known any of their names. I know they come in different shapes.” He pauses again, considering. “It was like the gift Yara gave me that time, after you rescued her.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby nods. “We should watch </span>
  <em>
    <span>Jaws</span>
  </em>
  <span> together one day.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s that?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“A movie about the biggest shark ever.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev’s eyes narrow, cleverness a constant flicker behind his gaze. “A </span>
  <em>
    <span>movie</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” He almost scoffs. He can be a little prickly occasionally, despite his practical way of speaking. It’s a quality Abby finds more and more endearing all the time.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, a </span>
  <em>
    <span>movie</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” Abby retorts, “What’s wrong with that?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We didn’t watch movies. How did these movie people manage to capture the biggest shark in the world? That sounds very difficult.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby snorts, which in turn transforms into an unexpected burst of laughter. They both pause to look at each other with some surprise. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Humor</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Abby had almost forgotten. Shaking her head, her grin feels too giddy, too innocent. It’s something that is precious, and so fragile that even the wrong gust of wind might be able to knock it off her face. She tries to hold on to that feeling, sucking it deep inside and savoring it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Happiness</span>
  </em>
  <span>. How easy it had become to forget what this felt like. For so long, happiness had been as abstract as an old memory she couldn’t quite recall.   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They didn’t!” Abby reasons with a grin. “I think they made a fake one. It was a... robot… You know, like a really big puppet.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This is enough to merit a smile of equal value in Lev. He just rolls his eyes and pulls ahead, already searching out a way through a snarl of overgrown cars blocking the intersection directly in front of them. “Thank you for your offer but, I don’t think I would care very much for a story like that. I think that a real shark would be better.”   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But what if it’s a really good shark? What if you couldn’t tell the difference?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The back of Lev’s head laughs too, before he nimbly scrambles up the side of an overturned delivery van. When he twists around to shoot Abby a look, his face is half screwed up as he squints into the afternoon sun. “I suppose it’s like… well… Have you ever seen someone smile when they don’t mean it?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Following him up the side of the van, Abby nods. Her body isn’t healing quite as quickly as his is, but she’s okay with taking things one step at a time. The sun on her back is certainly helping. “Yeah. So?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her ignorance is feigned, already suspecting where this is going but wanting to hear Lev follow through with it all the same. Lev offers her a sardonic lift of his eyebrow before leaping off the van and back into the grass. He knows Abby very well by now. He can see into her. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So?” He concludes, air both in his voice and in his step. The sunshine is apparently buffeting him up too. “There’s a big difference. Even if it’s a very good copy, it’s never the same as the real thing. You can always feel it in your heart when something is special. ” </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Abby doesn’t like sleeping. She doesn’t like not being aware of her surroundings, and she knows Lev feels the same. They walk every day as far as they can, until sheer exhaustion in the end is the thing that puts them down on their asses for the night instead of simple necessity.  These days it doesn’t take too much to exhaust them, their bodies are still recovering, but more than that their minds need the silence and the space and the distance to reclaim some semblance of anything even remotely resembling the identities they had lost. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie is in Abby’s dreams almost nightly. But the dreams change and shift, and more often than not by the time Abby wakes up sweating, sometimes even too afraid to realize where she is, the dream itself has already dissolved. Abby thinks she dreams about Ellie in the hospital, and she dreams of Ellie in the grass, stalking her through shadows like a bloodthirsty animal. Abby knows panthers. Her father had helped raise one before it escaped it’s encampment and Owen had been forced to put a bullet in it’s brain. Cougars still roamed wild in the country here too, but at least they had better sense than to try for Owen on one of his better days. But Ellie is worse than any wild cat. Ellie is smarter, more cruel, and many, </span>
  <em>
    <span>many</span>
  </em>
  <span> times more dangerous. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes Abby wakes up thinking her hands and feet feel wet. The phantom of the golf club is often in her grip, blood and viscus spattered hot across her legs. Sometimes Ellie’s voice will linger too. Not any of her ardent threats, but just the sound of her voice alone, the night Abby had bashed Joel’s head in. No words, just an agonizing atonal sound. Something ravaged. The sound of complete despair. Human grief. A sound Abby has heard a thousand more times, in echoes across herself. In the night she found her father dead on the hospital floor, in the sight of Mel and Owen’s blood-spattered corpses, in Rattlers approaching with their hands on their belts, and hundreds of nights after that. Death has a smell that won’t wash off. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mostly Lev is there when Abby jerks awake screaming, her hands wiping away fluids that don’t exist, with a desperation that’s not necessary anymore. Other times it’s Lev who Abby stays awake for. He doesn’t scream, but he whimpers, and he jerks like he’s stuck in a hole and he can’t get out of it again. Abby thinks she would do anything to make it all stop. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But some nights, Abby still dreams about her father when he was alive. Of the zoo and her childhood, of monkeys howling and birds singing and a thousand shiny coins spinning in the palm of her hand. She dreams about Owen plucking a flower and brushing her face with the soft red petals as he gently tucks it behind her ear. Owen’s eyes are sad. They’re sad, so sad, but they don’t offer her any consolation either. Those are the kinds of mornings where Abby wakes up without a sound. The dream recedes until she can barely recall what it was about, but for the rest of the day she’s silent as the grave as she thinks about Ellie. These meditations on her shadow, Abby is sure, will always stalk behind her for the rest of her life. No matter how far she goes. </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The seagull jerks midair as it dies, then plummets in a quickly descending spiral. When it vanishes below the distant horizon line, Lev turns his head.  “Abby.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The wind whistles across the lip of the roof and fat, fluffy clouds drag across the blue sky as Abby squats down by Lev to follow his line of sight. The boy’s finger brushes a faraway point out across a maze of toppled buildings, down to the region just shy of the far side of the abandoned QZ outpost; a marker they had cleared just a half day’s journey past. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Not you?” she whispers. She doesn’t really need to whisper at this distance, but experience and muscle memory make her do it anyway.  Someone is hunting. The first human </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone</span>
  </em>
  <span> they have encountered in over a month.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He shakes his head, all his arrows still safe in his pack. “Not me.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They exchange serious looks before Abby reaches behind her bag and produces a rife, then pulls the scope up to her eye. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev leans closer, near to holding his breath. “Do you see the old mural? There’s a pelican on it. West of that, look down towards the alley with the red brick wall.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I see it. Wait.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The crosshairs skitter across derelict waste. Over palm trees with trunks thick with weeds, and faded orange billboards and the rusty skeletons of decomposing office buildings. Were they being followed? By who? It actually feels like an eon has passed since Abby and Lev have seen another human. As far as they have been aware, the only living humans in Long Beach are them. Abby has even caught herself wishing recently that she and Lev could stay alone on the road together for the rest of their lives, despite their current goals. She has to check herself after thinking this, because it’s the thought of someone whose biggest weakness isn’t sentimentality, it’s stupidity.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev looks at Abby with some confusion when she suddenly pulls the scope back down, feeling every single hair on her body prickle up and stick out. When her heart rate picks up, it makes her chest scar twinge and pulse with pain. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Thud thud thud thud</span>
  </em>
  <span>. This can’t be happening. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>absolutely</span>
  </em>
  <span> cannot not be happening. Salt and blood mingle again in a nightmare recollection, already thick on her tongue and threatening to choke her with the phantom taste. She feels the crunch of bones between her teeth. The hot slash of a blade. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well?” Lev prompts again, more anxious this time. “What do you see?” </span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Taking a steadying breath, Abby tries not to let her hands shake when she brings the scope back up to double check what her entire body is demanding that she pay attention to. What she already </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She looks down the sight again, and Ellie passes through the crosshairs, just as she’s twisting around to cinch the dead seagull to her pack. Abby’s finger slides down to the trigger and lingers there. She can’t tell if it’s the metal or only her hand that feels this slick and cold.  Her ears fill up with blood as her heart hammers louder. Her chest hurts. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Her chest hurts.</span>
  </em>
  <span> THUD THUD THUD THUD.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Abby</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Lev whispers more sharply, and Ellie silently slips out of her sights. With a shaky breath, Abby brings the rifle back down and sets it on her knee. Oddly grateful. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Who is it?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When she looks at Lev, Abby sees the worry in his eyes. They regard each other a long moment before she sets the butt of the gun down on the ground and reaches out to brush a bit of his hair back off his forehead. She smiles gently, a small, almost apologetic look. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Maybe</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and this is a strong maybe, it’s the very last one she’ll ever be able to honestly offer.  Abby knows what panthers do.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“...it’s her.” </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>That night, Abby and Lev argue like they never have before. The distance they’ve put between Ellie’s last known location and where they’re camped out now is big enough to provide at least a marginal safety buffer, but Lev is still furious and pleading in turns. He doesn’t want any more killing, and Abby can’t blame him for a single drop of that desire. The thing about it is, when a killer is following you, sometimes your choices are limited. And in Abby’s specific case, she thinks her choices might as well be nonexistent. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We can’t run forever.” Abby groans, a tired hand rubbing over her eyes. “I thought this was over too, I don’t want to hear that it is when it obviously isn’t.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But we don’t have to go </span>
  <em>
    <span>back</span>
  </em>
  <span> either! I don’t think she knows exactly where we are and you said it yourself, we’re only a few days away! We can make it if we try! We’ll be safe.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Sure, we can make it. But what about after that, Lev? I don’t even know if Owen was right. What if it’s not there after all? Or if the building was blown to shit? You’ve seen the rest of this place. What if we get there and there’s just… nothing? Except </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” she jabs her finger at the door to the stairs. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Out there.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Following us.”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev shakes his head, wondering and angry at once. They’ve stuffed themselves into an old basement. The house is relatively undamaged, which is a minor miracle considering literally everything. Very few completely secure structures were left over after the government sanctioned evacuation and the eventual carpet bombing that brought the population of infected in this zone to its knees.  And even less after that from the constant erosion of weather and time. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t care, I don’t want to live like this anymore, Abby. I don’t think it’s right. I’m afraid, I don’t want to become like... </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Worse than demons.” He shudders. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby is so tired. Her eyes are too dry… she rubs them harder, until she sees stars exploding against her burning lids. “Like </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For a suffocating silence Lev looks off into the middle distance, at nothing and everything. “...</span>
  <em>
    <span>Bad</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Like the wolves, and the elders, and... like…. </span>
  <em>
    <span>you,</span>
  </em>
  <span> used to be.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The weight of the world becomes too heavy to bear all at once, and then lifts up a little when Abby makes a decision. She hates it as much as she recognizes its necessity, but she doesn’t think she could deal with looking at Lev every day knowing how he feels. She is so tired of hating. Abby is exhausted by the life hatred has granted her, here at the end of everything. Stripped of everything. No home. No comrades. No safety, no ethos, no father. But hate isn’t something easily put down, or even set aside, and so even now she grapples with herself as she makes her final call. They must be all or nothing. They must be the ones to end things, before Ellie would be the one to end them.  Abby is sick to death of being sick to death. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alright,” she sighs, almost every single inch of her quivering with reluctance. They won’t kill Ellie. Not yet. “...we’ll follow her.” </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Lev smiles. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie, it turns out, is just exactly as crafty and imaginative as Abby has always feared. She’s economical about her resources, and she tears through packs of infected with something close to preternatural ease. She is a stalker in every sense, and in ways that are too disconcerting to give words to, she precisely matches what a nightmare of Ellie might look like. Abby and Lev double back and give her a wide berth until they follow her from behind again, never close enough to come within listening distance, but always near enough to spot her with a scope. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby thinks Ellie’s eyes look dead. It’s hard to see her expressions from so far off, but there’s something about the way she moves her body that makes Abby fill in all the missing pieces. Desperation is one thing, but running straight into broken glass is something else entirely. Ellie is quick as a cat and making alarming time, surely she would have come up on them if Lev hadn’t seen her take down that seagull, but watching her from afar also makes Abby begin to feel something uncomfortable. The emotion is squirming and sick and fetid, and it harbors in Abby’s chest, then sinks slowly deeper. She’s afraid to call it pity, because Abby would never pity a woman who could savage her friends so mercilessly, but Ellie is so alone some days it’s like the rest of the world might as well not even exist. Ellie is the last pinprick of humanity that’s left in a savaged landscape, full of danger and destruction. Some days, it feels just like a painting. The leopard that tried to climb Kilimanjaro. The villain left alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie is sitting in the water back towards the shore. She’s crying. The distant thought drifts across Abby that she doesn’t remember Ellie ever being that skinny. Now, Ellie is skeletal. She’s death walking, death sitting, death bleeding, death crying. Her sobs drift out across the water and touch Abby on the cheek like an icy gust. Abby steers her little boat away to safety, blood pouring down her chest and shoulder, with an unconscious Lev tucked at the bow. The engine rumbles, the water splashes against the little hull, the mist closes in, and then the shape of the regretful reaper vanishes into the dark. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Just go.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She’s gone.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby tongues her molars and nods, the weight of this fact settling like a stone in her stomach. “I know.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s been two days. She could be anywhere by now.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I know.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you think..?” Lev hesitates, and Abby finally looks over at him. He’s uncharacteristically anxious, which bleeds into Abby as she gives him a hand up the dumpster they’re scaling. “Do you think she’s been hurt?”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby shakes her head, then pulls down a rusty ladder that groans in protest, but still holds firm.  “She can’t get infected, I told you.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“There are </span>
  <em>
    <span>other</span>
  </em>
  <span> ways to get hurt.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby shakes her head. “Don’t I know it.” She boosts Lev up and he catches the bottom rung, then easily scrambles higher. She follows him a moment afterward, and they collapse on the sunny roof in order to rest and regroup.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Two days ago Ellie had vanished. Completely vanished. Abby is a very good tracker and therefore not sure how anyone could manage this feat if they had not died, so she’s at odds with herself about whether she considers this incredibly bad or incredibly good. Both? Could she legitimately feel both at the same time? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And… Joel. He was the one, you..?” Lev’s worried eyes skate away. He’s a sensitive kid, and Abby isn’t surprised he’s trying to understand a situation that’s fucked, no matter how you look at it. But sometimes Abby wishes he wouldn’t ask these kinds of questions. It always feels like getting dragged over hot coals. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I killed Joel.” She says it very bluntly, her voice low with that same ancient anger. “But you better believe me, he had it coming.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Because he killed your father.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>just</span>
  </em>
  <span> kill my dad, he wiped out our entire unit. My </span>
  <em>
    <span>family</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And he killed humanity’s last hope at a better world. And guess what? It turns out that asshole had been fucking people over for years, ripping people off and killing for a profit. He was an assole when he was alive, and he’s an assole now that he’s dead. He was a vile piece of shit and if I had the chance to do it </span>
  <em>
    <span>all over</span>
  </em>
  <span> again </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’d do it.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He fucked us, do you understand? Joel </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucked</span>
  </em>
  <span> us. He deserved exactly what he got.”  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev scratches the back of his head and doesn’t say anything, but he does look out over the city for a while in heavy thought. His thinking face is almost cartoonish, because of the little wrinkle he gets between his eyebrows. “...But he did that to rescue Ellie, didn’t he?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For some reason, his wording scorches. Abby rolls her shoulders in discomfort and twists around to pull out her map. “I wouldn’t say </span>
  <em>
    <span>rescue</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”   </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why not?” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Lev</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” Abby warns, her teeth grinding as she spreads out the map on the ground. He just sighs. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” She sets her finger on the map. “If we’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, then that means we lost Ellie somewhere around… here.” Her finger taps on a small industrial complex.  “I say we follow the canal and loop around to approach from the west. There’s better cover and I think I remember seeing a lookout tower. If Ellie is still there we can get a clean headshot, nice and easy.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Abby.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She shakes her head, first only once, then more vigorously. “No, Lev.” She doesn’t want to hear it. This needs to end. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Listen to me!” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby balls up her map in an explosion of frustration then stuffs it back into her bag. “Listen to what?” She tries to keep her voice civil but she knows she’s failing. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve been thinking.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nothing unusual there. Abby produces an orange from her pack and starts to vigorously peel it. When she splits it down the middle, she hands half of it over to the boy. “Oh yeah?”  She’s not sure she wants to hear, but she knows Lev well enough to know he won’t let sleeping dogs lie. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well,” Lev’s head cocks to the side as he thinks. “If Ellie is special like she is, why can’t we just take her with us? Where we’re going… you don’t think the Fireflies couldn’t find another doctor? What if Ellie could be tested? Could she help fight the demons? Did anybody ever ask her what she wants to do with her gift?” </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Abby thinks she can feel the exact moment when all the water in her skin drains out. She’s so tired. She is </span>
  <em>
    <span>so fucking tired.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Her hands fall limply down into her lap, her orange slices forgotten. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Lev…</span>
  </em>
  <span>” it’s nearly begging. Her voice sounds exhausted, near to haggard. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Please</span>
  </em>
  <span>, stop.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But I-?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Stop</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev closes his mouth, and they don’t talk about it anymore. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie is sitting in the water. She’s crying. There’s another boat, but she’s not getting into it. Why isn’t she getting into it? She’s death defeated, a skeleton sitting in a pool of blood and sorrow. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Just go.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lev is asleep. The mist is thick enough to caress Abby’s battered skin, smooth and wet and heavy in her lungs as she breathes in and out. Her heart beats. She’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Just go!</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The water is rising with the mist, and Ellie’s fragile shape is easily overtaken by the gray blur of the world, salted corpses at her back, the only company that’s left. She had been so frightening before, all claws and desperation. Everything that is the opposite of love and goodness. But every coin has a reverse face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Just take him and go!</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie is sitting and crying in the water. Everything has a limit. Everyone. Abby clenches her teeth and turns her boat around and heads back towards the shore. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢⌢</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Abby wakes up to a resonant silence. The night is calm and Lev is sleeping at her side, for once peaceful enough that the usual crease between his brow is smooth. She stays quiet as a mouse as she gathers up her gear and creeps out the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The night is cool on her face. It’s a welcome change from the summer heat, and it soothes Abby’s mind as she creeps towards the zone where Ellie had last been seen. She won’t let Lev tarnish himself. This has got to end. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Somehow</span>
  </em>
  <span>. One way or another, this cannot keep going on. Better that Abby should do it and spare the kid any more horrors. He has more than enough of those already, and Abby has so many that just one more couldn’t possibly tip the scale. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The world is deceitfully soft, full of silty blue shadows and the mournful groans of broken buildings settling. It’s strange to think of what the world must have looked like in the Old Times. Abby has seen pictures in books, and her life at the Stadium had been comfortable in a way she thinks might resemble at least a little bit of that old culture, but the ruin of the world is a constant reminder of what has been lost. The treacherous thought that people like Joel might be angry because they saw their world collapse in front of them is not lost on Abby. As someone whose life has also recently collapsed, she can appreciate the despair. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Somewhere in all this wretched mess of destruction and loss is Ellie. A monster alone in her natural habitat. Abby reaches into her pocket and grips a quarter, not one of her fathers, those are long since lost, but a different, found token to remember him by. She spins it in her fingers, sending it round and round. Two sides, one coin. Jerry and Joel. Abby and Ellie. Completely different. Completely inseparable. She walks through the night alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>The surprise eventually comes not as a sneak attack executed by an expert predator, but only by the fact that Abby finds Ellie almost right away. At first Abby lingers at a distance, still not quite sure if what she’s seeing is a corpse.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ellie is laid out in the booth of a broken diner, under a patch of moonlight where moths flicker and dot down on the table to take sips of old dribbles of rain water. She’s pale as death, and as Abby moves cautiously closer, it becomes more obvious why that might be. A large blood stain has spread out underneath her, marking an injury significant enough to make her look exsanguinated. She’s not dead, her chest still rises and falls in measured breaths, but she looks like she’s faring very poorly at best. This alone fills Abby with a complete sense of betrayal, and she has to take a step back again to digest that reaction. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The simple fact of the matter is, if Ellie dies like this, then where is Abby’s justice? Justice for her team, for the countless wolves Ellie had slaughtered in pursuit of her own revenge, for the fact that Abby doesn’t have a life anywhere anymore, no place to call home. Only Lev. But Ellie is alone. Conflicted, Abby pulls out her pistol and points the barrel down at her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Green vines creep down the side of the red booth and brush Ellie’s cheek. She’s still wretched looking, even in sleep. Maybe </span>
  <em>
    <span>especially</span>
  </em>
  <span> in sleep. How had this creature moved so quickly before? Her body is a prison, even to the untrained eye. Her muscles must ache, and her joints must groan. She probably bites the inside of her lip too often, and her teeth must excessively chip. Her hair probably falls out too fast, and it doesn’t take a genius to spot the fact that she burns like a lobster. Something is clutched in her hand over her chest, something seemingly precious, and Abby lets go of the quarter in her pocket as if it were suddenly hot as iron. Both hands on the gun. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>One </span>
  <em>
    <span>shot</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It would just take one shot. And then it can be over. Abby wants so badly for all of this to be over. One shot and this nightmare can finally come to an end. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Or would it? </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” Abby whispers vehemently, before she lowers her gun. She takes a moment to look at Ellie with every drop of spite in her body that she can summon, before she stuffs her pistol angrily back into its holster and spits off towards the left in disgust at the both of them at once. Abby doesn’t shoot sleeping animals. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Now that she’s decided, Abby takes a step closer, a grimace on her face, her heart in her throat. She can feel her chest scar thudding right along with her pulse. Her hands feel cold and shaky, and she looks down at Ellie’s maimed fingers. Two gnarled, nasty red stumps are all that remain from that duel with death on the beach. The night that, in perfect honesty, should have been the night they both died. And yet, just look at them now.  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re getting off lucky, bitch.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Abby whispers, venomous. Ravenous. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Really fucking lucky</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>If Ellie manages to live through the night, they’ll come for her tomorrow. </span>
</p><p>
  
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